Davis leaders want public input on Great Salt Lake plan

FARMINGTON — Davis County commissioners are encouraging the public to provide input into the Great Salt Lake Comprehensive Management Plan's revision.

The Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands is in a two-year process to update a plan created in 2000 regarding the stewardship and use of the lake. A final plan could be ready in February 2012, after a draft plan and several opportunities for public comment. The current comment period runs through September.

Laura B. Vernon of SWCA Environmental Consultants told the commission Tuesday that many of the issues a decade ago focused on lake's high water levels but now focus on low levels. Plus, lots of information and data have been collected about the lake the past 10 years.

Louenda Downs, a county commissioner and also a member of the newly created Great Salt Lake Advisory Council, noted the "lean" lake levels.

"We've got to find a happy medium in what every stakeholder has invested in this, while at the same time preserving the Great Salt Lake and what exists there," Downs said.

"It's something that we take for granted," Commissioner Bret Millburn said. "It's out there, and we don't really think about it on a day-to-day basis, but it really is a vital component of our ecology, our environment and also our economic engine of the state."

For more information about opportunities for public comment on the lake plan, visit www.gslplanning.utah.gov.

— Brice Wallace